Repercussions
by Pearl Prynne
Summary: The R-break up has ramifications far into the future. You can't mess with destiny - even your own - and not expect some kind of retribution.
1. Prologue

The R-break up has ramifications far into the future. You can't mess with destiny - even your own - and not expect some kind of retribution.

* * *

><p><strong>Prologue<strong>

Chiba Mamoru was drunk. Contrary to what he been lead to believe, it did not seem to make anything any better. In fact, he noted that if anything it made things much worse.

He was still haunted, guilt-stricken and heartbroken, only now he also had trouble walking and forming coherent thoughts, and right now his wallet was feeling what he was sure his head would feel in the morning.

At least, he figured, he'd be too wasted to dream anything that night.

Although he was still two years below the legal drinking age in Japan, places didn't seem to care if you weren't twenty years old yet as long as you paid cash and looked old enough to be out at night by yourself. At least, this place didn't.

The small dive bar he had just exited was within stumbling distance of his apartment, but now he had to figure out in which direction he had to turn to arrive back home. He leaned against the ally wall, dizzily.

Above him, a streetlight flickered a few times and went out, casting him into semi-darkness amid the haze of silver and orange from the rest of the city - outside his sphere of darkness.

"Are you lost?" a melodic, sympathetic voice asked at his elbow.

"Very," he mumbled, "I don't... think I can even explain how much."

Cool fingers curled around his elbow, and for some strange reason Mamoru didn't jerk away from a stranger's touch like he usually would have.

"Let me get you home," she said, softly.

He didn't ask how she knew where he lived. He just walked beside her shadowy figure down the ally and across the street to the familiar stairs that led up to his front door. It was too late at night, the lobby doors were locked, the lights off. Mamoru swayed on his feet.

"You need your key," the voice said, sounding so sad that _he_ actually felt sorrow for _her_- that she should have to see him this way. It was a backwards, spiraling feeling that had him reeling more than the shots of whiskey he had knocked back just minutes ago while trying desperately to erase the image of tear-filled blue eyes that was burned into his brain.

He fumbled and dropped the small metal object a few times before finally fitting it into the lock and opening the lobby doors. The elevator was another adventure, he couldn't remember what floor he lived on, and the mystery woman was no help.

"I don't remember, either," she sounded apologetic. "Let's just try each one."

He remembered after the fifth floor, that he lived on the tenth.

When they arrived on his floor, the lights in the hallway were on, brightly burning, and he squinted after the darkness of the streets, lobby and elevator. Blinded, he stumbled to his door. He dropped his key again, three more times, before he opened the door.

She followed him inside, shutting the door behind her. Neither of them turned on any lights.

It was another adventure removing his shoes, but he finally managed. Then, he collapsed on the sofa, buried his face in his hands. "The room won't stop spinning," he choked out, his voice hitching.

A glass of water was pressed into his hands. "Drink," she said kindly. Mamoru looked at the water, and then up the woman offering it. He still couldn't see well in the dark after the hallway lights seared in his retinas. She swam in his vision. His hands were shaking as he sipped the water.

He gagged and put it down on the table, shaking his head. "I can't."

Mamoru gasped for air and repeated the phrase again, his voice pleading, "I can't. I can't..." He dropped his head into his hands with a sob.

Arms suddenly circled his shoulders, soft hair fell across his face. He leaned into her shoulder, desperately. She was startled when he wrapped her arms around her waist. "_Usako_." The name was like a prayer on his lips, like the desperate plea of a ruined man. It made goosebumps break out on her arms.

He wasn't in his right mind. It wasn't just the alcohol. She knew her presence was altering his aura and confusing him; it wasn't her intention to have shown up right outside the bar just as the young man staggered out, looking like a lost little boy. But she couldn't just leave him alone. She could never leave him alone.

But it's not like he'd remember any of this ever happened. And not just because of the whiskey.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered, her voice trembled with unshed tears."I don't know why he's doing this to you." Endymion was not a self-destructive individual, he never had been. If anything, his personality swung in the other direction. None of this made any sense.

She knew from her brief visit into Sailor Moon's mind that Usagi had been heartbroken, utterly devastated by the break-up. But this man she held - this man was just_ destroyed_. She brushed damp black hair back from his face tenderly.

"It's a warning," Mamoru managed to say, his fingers were tangling in her hair. His tears were still falling on her neck, his body still shaking.

She shook her head, "No, he said it was a test-" she recalled again from Usagi's memories of an explanation which hadn't happened yet in this time.

But she stopped, because she knew that didn't make any sense, either. Maybe it was her proximity to Mamoru's damaged psyche, allowing her access to view the content of dreams themselves from his mind, but suddenly she felt something like dread drop into the pit of her stomach. What _was_ King Endymion trying to do?

"Mamo-chan," she said, pulling back and putting his face in her hands. He moaned at the name. "Mamo-chan," she repeated, gently. "Go to sleep. And no dreams tonight." To her surprise, he kissed her, clumsily, desperately, and she let him - but only for a moment. She stroked his face and felt him relax under her fingertips and fall into slumber.

"Just a few more weeks," she whispered to him, "and you'll be with her again."

He'd awake with no memory of her, and no hangover, either. The latter was her gift to him. The former was just a fact of the time rift correcting its mistake.

* * *

><p>Neo-Queen Serenity felt the time rift slam her back into the 30th century just in time - she had been starting to feel the effects of existing in the same place as her past self. She found herself on the floor of her room in Crystal Tokyo, dizzy and sick.<p>

Serenity swallowed dryly. She knew it was important to notify Sailor Pluto that she encountered another time rift left behind by the Black Moon's careless time travel within Crystal Tokyo's city limits. She figured she'd have to admit she spoke to a 20th century resident although nothing too major took place and the time rift would repair itself and erase that event anyway.

She wanted to discuss Small Lady's return. And the progress of the rebuilding of the city after the defeat of the Black Moon clan just days before.

She'd have to eventually even sit up.

But now she couldn't even bring herself to move.


	2. Chapter 1

ff dot net had me defaulted to not being able to accept anon reviews. I had no idea. That's fixed now. So sorry.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter One<strong>

* * *

><p>"Serenity? Are you alright?" The voice would have sounded composed and tinged merely with polite concern to anyone else. Only she recognized the distressed edge, the barely suppressed panic in the tones of his speech.<p>

"Endymion," she murmured, and he knelt beside her.

Serenity felt disoriented as she pressed her palms to the floor and attempted to push herself into a sitting position. Warm hands found their way to her shoulders, and Endymion helped steady her, pulled her gently into his arms as he sat beside her.

The king seemed calm and collected as always to everyone else, only Serenity recognized the truth. The fear and pain buried beneath the cool gaze of his eyes. How he trembled when he touched her, like she might vanish right in front of him. She had emerged from her crystal encasement restored and healed. But Endymion was still so damaged.

No one else knew about the dreams that Endymion had sent his past self, since no one remembered that far back in time, and he carefully omitted that information when detailing what he had witnessed as his hologram wandered, specter-like, through the palace ruins.

Serenity never told her husband that she knew. And seeing the state Mamoru had been in, and experiencing, through her connection to him, exactly what Endymion showed him - _night after night_- ... the sheer maliciousness of it was all too much for her to bear.

Still, it was in Endymion's arms she found refuge from her thoughts, solace from her hurt. She shut her eyes as he stroked her back, her hair, and brushed his lips against her face. He sensed her agitation, and she could feel a sense of calm, of restoration, flowing from his hands into her wounded psyche. Tears burned behind her eyelids.

"What happened?" he asked.

Maybe it had been a test. Maybe it had been a warning. In any case, it was dangerous. He could have erased _everything_. Their daughter. Their kingdom. _Why?_

Serenity sighed, pale blue eyes opening regretfully. "We need to gather the senshi and call Sailor Pluto from the time gate." She felt his alarm in the way his body tensed beneath her arms. "I think the time rifts are getting worse."

* * *

><p>"The time rifts should be diminishing with the defeat of the Black Moon, not swallowing people whole," concerned marred Sailor Pluto's perfect features.<p>

"I may have walked directly into it," the Neo-Queen admitted, "my thoughts were elsewhere."

Sailor Mercury cut in with, "Besides the Black Moon clan popping in and out of time as if it was their own private walk-in closet, Small Lady went back in time for her own safety. And we are all now aware that the senshi and Tuxedo Kamen came to Crystal Tokyo from the 20th century, too. Every event outside of a regular time-stream is damaging, so we should expect residual effects from all this, right?"

"Residual effects should be _fading_." Sailor Pluto said, "That was rather my point." She frowned as if considering something, but wouldn't elaborate further.

Serenity felt depressed. They were holding off on calling Small Lady back until the city was free from roving space-time rips. One convenience of time travel was departure and arrival could be bent to your will - so Small Lady was not waiting for them. But, oh god, Serenity missed her little girl.

"I bet coming here was traumatizing for them," Sailor Mars was saying, referring to their past selves' appearance in the war-torn Crystal Tokyo just weeks before.

Although she had no clear memories of their previous visit to Crystal Tokyo during the 20th century, Sailor Mars didn't have to guess how they had felt when they saw the devastation around them, or were told that the woman lying prone in the crystal coffin was their precious Usagi-chan.

There was a heavy pause, and the senshi and King seemed to go inside themselves, remembering the immediate aftermath of the Black Moon attack - Princess Usagi Small Lady Serenity's disappearance and Neo-Queen Serenity's encasement in crystal. They didn't know until much later if either one was even alive.

Serenity glanced around at the sorrowful expressions, feeling strangely precluded from the shared moment of relived trauma.

"I can tell you Sailor Moon was thinking, 'Wow, it looks like I finally got taller,'" the Neo-Queen finally said, lightly. It wasn't entirely true, Serenity admitted silently to herself, but that particular thought _was_ the first to enter Sailor Moon's head when she first saw her future self.

That effectively broke the tension.

Until Sailor Pluto spoke, that is. "I never knew you had such a good memory," she said, hazel eyes stared intently into ice blue ones.

Serenity sighed, "I don't. As you well know." All eyes were on her now. Pluto's gaze was extracting. Endymion's expression didn't change, but Serenity recognized apprehension, hidden deep within his dark eyes. "There was a period while I was - asleep - during which Sailor Moon effectively channeled me, using the silver crystal."

"Go on." Sailor Pluto's voice was quiet but intense.

"It was when I-she- was trying to to bring Small Lady back from the grasp of the Black Moon," here her voice hitched, and Sailor Mars reached out a comforting hand to her shoulder. "She asked the crystal to aid her, and it brought me into the battle."

"Sailor Moon became me, and I was her." The Neo-Queen shrugged slightly, "I saw everything through her eyes and spoke through her to Small Lady. It was brief."

"So you were in her mind, in her consciousness," Sailor Mars breathed. "No wonder you seem to know so much about your 20th century life all of a sudden."

"I didn't go poking around in her mind," Serenity countered, a bit defensively. "I was there for one reason only: Small Lady. When she was saved, my mind returned to my body."

"Did you leave anything behind?" Sailor Pluto asked, seriously.

Serenity shook her head. "I don't think so. It was a one-way connection."

Sailor Mars nodded, she was following this conversation better than almost anyone else present.

"But Usagi left something behind," Sailor Mars postulated, pointing one slim, perfect finger right at the crescent moon on Serenity's forehead, "in you."

"Only bits and pieces. Mostly recent memories of her life in old Tokyo, the days leading up to the battle where she called me. The day she - we- came here."

"What was it like?" Sailor Mercury asked; when in scientist-mode her curiosity could sometimes override her usual sensitivity.

After all, Sailor Moon came face-to-face with the devastation of her future, was captured by Prince Demando - whose designs on her with not innocent, and then had to take a life, and finally that was the day little Small Lady, "Chibi-Usa" as they called her, was captured by the Black Moon. It was not something anyone would want to relive if they would help it.

"It was strange," Serenity whispered. Endymion shut his eyes. No one but Serenity noticed his hands were shaking an indiscernible amount.

No one spoke for a long time.

Sailor Pluto finally broke the silence. "You have given me something to think about."

She ignored the curious looks of the others and turned toward the King and Neo-Queen. "I'll be returning to the time gate. Please inform me of any other time rifts. And, your majesty, please do try _not_ to walk through another one." A small smile curled her lips.

"I'll be more careful," Serenity murmured. Pluto put a hand on hers, briefly, and they shared a glance before the dark-haired senshi walked out the door.

As the other senshi dispersed, Neo-Queen Serenity looked up at her husband, taking a breath to speak. But before she could open her lips, he gave her one, tortured glance and abruptly turned to leave the room.

The door closed with what felt like a crushing finality.

* * *

><p>AN.<p>

So you may have noticed it's not... exactly canon. but it's fanfic. so...


	3. Chapter 2

NOTES.

sorry for the wait. i suck. no excuses. I'm not used to doing multi-parters. your reviews really helped me keep going. thank you. so much. thanks.

* * *

><p>Later that day, Sailor Pluto stood in silence, her eyes serious beneath dark lashes. Before her, spindles of light danced at gloved fingertips, nuclei and apexes connected with strands of purple and gold - timelines bending and tangling at every angle. She blinked her eyes slowly.<p>

Behind her, someone sighed.

Her beautiful face betrayed nothing, her voice remained perfectly calm. "My king."

"Yes?"

"I appreciate your help in this matter," she tilted her head, not taking her eyes off the light show before her. It was all theoretical, the strands, the timelines, the simulated rifts she created before her. She had been at work for hours. The time gate stood behind her, a silent witness to her hours of solitary labor.

Endymion allowed himself to smile sardonically. "I've done nothing but sit here, Pluto."

"For three hours," she stated, almost pleasantly. A flick of her wrist sent another whirl of light toward in vortex and it disappeared with a small 'pop'. "Any insight, your highness?"

"Could it be Small Lady?"

Sailor Pluto smiled, her eyes softening. "My little time-traveler," she murmured, a gloved hand pressed to her heart, without her even realizing she had done so. "No. She is not the cause. It is something darker, more malicious then that. Malicious but not evil." She finally turned, and Endymion found himself facing her sad eyes instead of just a waterfall of green-black hair. "You have no idea what could have reached back into the past and is causing this damage."

"You switched your tenses."

"This is_ time_," she turned back to the light, the dots, the lines, weaving in and out of each other in constant movement. "Everything that has happened and will happen is happening simultaneously. There is a ripple effect currently that I can't trace, from here to the twentieth century and it is damaging time and I know there is something you aren't telling me. And I know why."

Endymion didn't flinch. He didn't even blink. "Why."

"Because it has to do with her."

* * *

><p>Neo-Queen Serenity did her very best to stifle a yawn. Exhaustion seemed to curl and twist into her very bones. Her heart ached in her chest, for her daughter, for her husband, for some sort of comfort she lacked so desperately.<p>

All day, she had not only had her own responsibilities to attend to, but the king's as well, since he was nowhere to be found since that morning. That meant twice the diplomatic appearances, twice the planning committees, and no breaks.

Her senshi, of course, were taking on more than their fair share as well. The crystal restored the kingdom and people to their former state of health and glory, but that only went so far. There was the matter of recompense, minor repairs, refugees, not to mention months of backlog from when they were all either predisposed, comatose or holographic.

At that thought, she had to suppress a near hysterical giggle. Oh god, she was so close to breaking down.

It was at that moment Serenity turned a corner and realized she was all alone in the vast hallway, although just a moment ago she had been surrounded by enough people to require a brave face.

With a groan, she collapsed against the wall, the cold stone comforting against her bare shoulders. Glassy eyes regarded the time rift in front of her without so much as a startled noise. They were barely intimidating anymore. Dark purple and black in color, spiral in shape, they floated around almost comically, she reflected, like pets or something cute like she'd collect back in her teen years. Halfheartedly, she reached out to brush the edges of the spiral with her fingertips. The edges bunched and buckled in shapes like a computer image Mercury had shown her years ago, back when she was still called Mizuno Ami. A "fractal" she had called it, then. Something that kept repeating and repeating forever.

"Serenity!" A strong push knocked her out of the way, and she cried out as her arm came in contact with the marble floor. The rift flickered and disappeared.

"Venus, my darling," Serenity murmured, not bothering to sit up.

"Those things are dangerous, Serenity," Sailor Venus knelt and gathered Serenity in her arms, brushing her hair back from her head. "What were you thinking? Going to fall through time twice in one day?"

Serenity shut her eyes for one blissful second, and then opened them to her friend's concerned glare. "It's like they are following me," she said, "but that's ridiculous, right?" Venus helped her stand, and they stood to face two more rifts, slowly spinning in the air of the hallway before them.

"Maybe not so ridiculous as you think," Venus said softly.

* * *

><p>Venus helped Serenity to bed, and was just leaving the room when Endymion entered. She leveled him with a glare.<p>

"Thanks for saddling her with all your responsibilities today, King," she said with an uncharacteristically sharp edge to her voice.

He didn't flinch, looking back at her evenly. "I was also busy today, Sailor Venus."

"Busy or hiding out?" she shot back.

Venus pointed at the bed, "Do your healing thing on her, fix her exhaustion or whatever. Earlier, she was practically dead on her feet." A slight intake of breath and momentary widening of her eyes was the only indication that Venus caught her own unfortunate choice of words. She only noticed that Endymion also cringed because she was watching for it.

"If she needs to sleep, just let her be," he answered.

With a lingering backwards glance, Venus left the room.

Serenity watched Endymion through her eyelashes, as he sat beside her and looked at her with something unreadable in his eyes.

"Talk to me," she said softly.

He rubbed one gloved hand over his eyes, his shoulders slumping slightly at the realization she was still awake. "You can barely keep your eyes open."

With a slight knit to her eyebrows, she pulled his hand toward her and began removing his glove, one finger at a time. Then she pressed their palms together and laced her fingers through his. "I don't need my eyes open. Talk."

Endymion still didn't meet her gaze, his face stony. She forced herself up on one elbow and pressed her fingers to the side of his face, her eyes softening as he involuntary leaned into her touch. "Fine, then don't talk," she said, gently. She felt his body shift, as he lifted himself up to leave. In a momentary panic she tightened her grip on his hand, slid her other hand back into his hair, pushing her fingertips into the nape of his neck. "Don't go." There was something underneath her voice that she recognized but didn't linger on identifying.

He finally met her eyes.

"_Serenity_..." Her name like a prayer. She'd heard that same tone before, in Mamoru's apartment a thousand years and just a few hours earlier - that same desperate, ragged plea. It didn't matter what name it was, what time. It was the same. It made tears spring to her eyes, even as Endymion's lips crushed to hers.

He forgot to be gentle, to treat her like he and everyone had been lately - as if she was quite literally made of glass that might shatter at any minute. Instead he was frantic, moreso with every kiss; what had been fraying at the edges for days had finally began to tear.

Energy flowed from his hands into her so quickly and intensely it nearly burned her skin - but only for a moment, and she felt her fatigue extinguished in a burst of white light. He may have mumbled an apology that got lost in her hair against his lips, while his hands pulled at her waist, her hips, her arms, desperately and with a grip that promised he'd never, ever let her go again.

There was no coherent words past that, not until much later and Serenity warned him with one look that she would not allow him to leave again if he tried. "Talk," she murmured.

"I didn't know you knew about the dreams," his lips were still brushing hers, but he no longer met her eyes.

"I didn't tell you," she shifted one arm to rest beside his head, pressed her forehead against his. White-blonde hair fell around them like a shield from the world. "So how could you know?"

"You aren't angry," his fingers traced her neck, her shoulders. He looked so impossibly sad.

"I'm confused," she answered, honestly. And then she pulled back, regarding the situation. "_Why_?" She had to ask, because they had to fix this. There was never a question or doubt in her mind that it would be together. Her fingers were still twisted through his.

"I don't know," his voice was raspy, his eyes closed as if he was trying to recall something that wouldn't quite come to the surface. "I think I wasn't even aware I was doing it." He swallowed. "I think - I think something happened to me. When they split me."

* * *

><p>It was Mercury who had helped invent the machine, of course. But not alone. Endymion himself had a part in it, too, the rudimentary physics behind it at least. Even Mars had lent her psychic expertise. It was still a prototype, had never been used not even on test subjects, when the attack came.<p>

The king had been badly injured, barely kept alive by the medical technology of the time. With the Neo-Queen locked away in what no one dared to admit might very well be her coffin, it fell to Sailor Venus as the next in command to make the decision. They needed a ruler, someone to run things while the senshi banded around the crystal palace, focusing their energy on the force-field that would protect the monarchs and refugees within.

Sailor Venus decided to use the machine and attempt to pull King Endymion's consciousness into the hologram, with Sailor Mercury's assurance that if anything should go wrong it was easy enough to abort.

But it worked.

In a holographic form, he couldn't touch anything physically, but could still manipulate the electronic controls of the security systems. It was a perfect solution.

Holograms didn't need to sleep, though there was a metaphysical need for oblivion - he could, for lack of a better word, shut down now and then. But he didn't dream. And he didn't feel as deeply, either. Grief, worry, fear, desperation - it was all there, pressing against his chest when he thought of his daughter who was lost to the time stream, and his wife, whose presence he could no longer feel. But it was a dulled pressure.

It was an unforeseen side-effect, but a fortunate one. It most likely kept him from going completely insane in the dark empty halls of his ruined home. Watching the monitors and waiting for word from his daughter, and torturing himself by staring at the motionless figure of his wife beneath layers of impervious crystal stone.

In all that time, he never really gave a thought to his physical body, and what might be left behind there.

Not until that boy from the past screamed at him, pain in his dark blue eyes, accused him of sending the dreams. Not until that young man ran right through the hologram, and thanks to Mamoru's psychometry and the electromagnetic field of the holographic image Endymion saw exactly what his past self meant.

So the king did what years of being a political leader had given him a talent for and made something up on the spot. It seemed to placate the young soldiers, who were too understandably overwhemled with all the new information to question it deeply.

Sailor Moon's ginzuishou failed to release Neo-Queen Serenity from her crystal prison. Even blunted, the king's heart broke at the disappointment in his daughter's face, and the guilt that laced Sailor Moon's young features.

Then, to his horror, Small Lady was taken by the enemy, who ferried her back to the twentieth century. And of course, the past senshi followed right behind.

He had to acknowledge that if the ginzuishou failed to bring Serenity back, she may really be dead. And Small Lady was now in the hands of the enemy, and who knew what the outcome of that could be.

It was only then, once again in solitude, that King Endymion gave himself over to despair.

* * *

><p>Notes<p>

I swear I'm going somewhere with this. trust me...

so...

what... do... you... think... if... anyone stuck around this long that is...


	4. Chapter 3

if you search the recesses of your mind you might have a fuzzy memory of this fic from a long time ago

so

here it is what?

what

ok

* * *

><p>It had been over a thousand years since Neo-Queen Serenity, then called Tsukino Usagi, had been chastised by a teacher. But standing before Sailor Pluto's stately form, the queen could practically feel the starched fabric of her school uniform cool against her skin, and smell the musty chalk of the classroom, hear her teacher's dangerously angry voice in her head.<p>

Serenity resisted the long-ago forfeited schoolgirl habit of biting her lower lip and instead raised her chin to meet Pluto's stoic gaze.

"I have done nothing wrong," Serenity said, firmly. Behind her, she could feel her senshi shift. It was almost silent, but she could sense more than hear: a fist clench, a heel fall, the defensive stance. She raised her hand slightly, signaling them it was fine.

Sailor Pluto was her deeply trusted adviser, and Small Lady's best friend. But the dark-haired senshi's loyalties lied with the Time Gate first and always.

And what she was saying was serious.

Sailor Pluto's eyes softened, and her whole face softened from deadly to gorgeous once again. "I know, my queen."

Serenity allowed herself a moment of relief behind closed eyelids, before Pluto's next words made them fly open again.

"But that doesn't change that the time disturbance is because of you."

It was Sailor Mars who charged forward, demanding an explanation. It was Jupiter who remained tensely coiled behind Serenity's back, ready to defend her queen and friend. Venus and Mercury came and tried to wrap their gloved arms around Serenity's shoulders, to calm her, whisper words of comfort, but to the queen it was like they weren't there.

Serenity's blue eyes remained locked on Pluto's ruby-colored ones as if in a trance. The Senshi of Time continued with gentle purpose. "Neo-Queen Serenity, you are the cause - if indirectly - of the disturbance. And so it is you who must repair it."

* * *

><p>"It is not your imagination that the time rifts appear to be attracted to you," Sailor Pluto said later, her fingers expertly brushing over crystals and glass screens as diagrams and numbers floated in the air before the gathered group of senshi. It wasn't as impressive or natural a display as the orbs and glittering universes of air she could create at the time door, but it served it's purpose.<p>

"What do they want from her?" Jupiter asked.

Pluto shook her head, light shimmering on waves of olive black hair. "They are not _sentient. _They seek nothing from our queen. The rifts are merely drawn to her as they sense the source of the time disturbance."

Serenity swallowed, cold fingers intertwining with the ends of her hair. Another nervous habit she hadn't succumbed to since her teen years.

"An attraction like magnets?" Mercury was suggesting, "or positive and negative charges?"

Pluto was silent for a while, the light from the display flickering green and gold across her beautiful, expressionless face. Finally she spoke. "Think of it more like water spiraling around a drain."

Serenity lifted her chin, raised blue eyes bravely. "How do I fix it?"

"You go," Pluto said, turning. "Down that drain."

"Back in _time_?" The senshi all spoke at once, but it was Mercury who's question rose above the din. "I thought we were trying to heal the rifts. Why would we want to rip the wound wider?"

"Or is it like drilling a cavity? You have to open it wider to fix it?" Venus wondered aloud, sending Serenity a wink - she knew her beloved friend and her fear of dental work that stretched far back into the 20th century.

Serenity shuddered. Cavities. Wounds. "I am not liking any of these metaphors," she forced levity into her tone, and the senshi gave false, tight smiles in return. But the dark mood refused to be lifted, especially when Pluto opened her mouth again.

Her expression was sorrowful, sad, and apologetic as the next words echoed through the room. "In order to send you where I need you, we'll have to do to you what we did to the king. We have to put you under."

It was like a bomb went off: the protests, the outcry and the outright refusals from the senshi. Serenity barely felt the hands on her shoulders, her arms, caressing her palms and lacing fingers through hers as her beloved friends and guardians surrounded her as if they could protect her from Pluto's words, from her necessary actions.

From losing her to sleep again.

"I'll do it," the queen said. She allowed herself a small, sardonic smile. "I've been feeling a little tired lately anyway."

* * *

><p>It was after the room cleared that Venus walked up to Pluto, her eyes like blue flame. "I don't like this."<p>

"Noted," Pluto said. "It cannot be helped."

"Fine," Venus spat. "But _you_ have to tell Endymion."

And then she was gone in a flash of golden hair and the lingering tension of anger and fear.

* * *

><p>Pluto cast a dispassionate look at the papers and broken glass strewn over the marble floor. The setting sun sparkled through the crystal walls of the palace, refracting into rainbows that winked cheerfully in stark contradiction to the mess before her.<p>

"Well, that was quite uncharacteristic," she said calmly.

Endymion clenched his fists. "You know the reason for the rifts," he managed to say, keeping his breath even. He focused his gaze on the grain of the wood of his desk, now emptied of all his belongings as they lay scattered and broken on the floor.

"Yes," she answered calmly.

"And then you know this is _my_ fault, Pluto," he lifted his gaze to hers, leveled her with a panicked, desperate expression. "Send _me_ to fix it! Not her!"

"I cannot very well send you into your own psyche."

"This is dangerous and foolish _at best_. Doing to her what you did to me? With that machine? What if she never comes back? Dammit, I will not watch her be like that - again-" He ran an agitated hand through his hair, shut his eyes against the memories. Both sets of memories, from the hologram and the sleeping consciousness, the hollowness and the longing and the _loss. _

The machine took his logical, sane half and molded it into a ghostly human form - to do what? Wait. Wait behind in the war-torn remnants of his home for a miracle that might never come. And the part of him the hologram had left behind - the memories still lingered behind his eyelids when he slept at night, the side of him he had spent years burying: angry, desperate and blindly lashing out at the only thing that could counteract the obliteration of everything he loved: to prevent it in the first place.

The senshi of time just shook her head. "It won't be the same, King. This is only sleep. This is only time travel. We are only repairing what you could not know you were doing."

He was still standing there, one hand curled into his hair, lips pressed tightly together against the onslaught in his mind.

"I am the guardian of the time gate," she said softly. "Many times I've watched helplessly, unable to aid those I've loved while they were in dire need. I believe I can imagine how you all felt when Serenity was... gone." A sigh shook her body, down to her fingers, through her uniformed ribs and the soles of her feet, she felt it. A melancholy ache settled over the room, and even the sun seemed to dim in response to the soldier's words. "Indeed I felt it too. I am a senshi and love her as well. Although now you look at me like you doubt my words."

There were few who would have noticed Endymion's hands shaking slightly, the desperation in his voice and the knitting of his eyebrows, the ache radiating from his eyes when he next spoke. They may have only seen a confident royal issuing an order. But Pluto saw his fraying edges and breaking veneer as clear as if he had been on his knees.

"You will not take her from me again," he said. "If you attempt to do what you say you have planned, I will have you removed forcefully from palace grounds and remanded to the gate forever once again."

The door to his office slammed but Pluto didn't even flinch. She had Neo-Queen Serenity's permission, and that was enough. If they did this right, no one even need live with the consequences. She knelt and picked up a piece of broken glass from the floor, held it up to the last rays of sunlight casting the city in one last embrace.

The shard flashed brightly.

If they failed, an alternate time-stream would open anyway and Pluto could only hope for the best.

* * *

><p>She was standing by the window, looking out over her bustling city with clasped hands. A small smile played on her face as Crystal Tokyo sparkled to life in the growing twilight, each winking city light a symbol of rebirth and victory. Endymion watched her for a second and then spoke, only two words:<em><strong><br>**_

"Please don't."

Serenity turned and regarded him with a sad look. "You know I have to. I always have to." Sailor Moon or not, she was the first line of defense and the last hope for the city, the planet, the entire cosmos. It was always her, thrown into the pit, and always her who returned victorious, a shining light and winning smile and a promise whispered in his ear: _we did it - it's over._

But that was a lie. It would never be over.

"But this time- this time it's me," he said. "This is my fault."

"Oh I didn't realize _you_ attacked Crystal Tokyo, I thought it was Nemesis," she said smartly, turning back to the window.

"You know what I mean," he answered, agitated by her calm exterior. "The time rifts, the dreams, the shift in time and everything being destroyed! It was me and it is _me_ you are going to confront! Pluto told you, didn't she? You'd have to stop the dreams at their source? Are you even listening?" At her lack of response, he finally grasped her arm, pulled her around to face him. "Serenity -"

"I'm not afraid," she answered softly. "Endymion - I'm not afraid."

He just looked her desperately, searching her eyes.

"You said it yourself." she said, her eyes still sad, accepting, "It's _you_. You will not hurt me."

He gave a slight shake of his head, and pulled her into his arms. He starred out over her head, buried in his shoulder, and looked out over at the sparkling city and the darkening bruised sky.

* * *

><p>It was silent in the room, as all the inner senshi and Endymion gathered to watch Serenity nervously awaiting the second use ever of the machine that had previously turned her husband into a walking ghost while she slumbered as if dead under layers of crystal.<p>

It was Mars who pushed the switch and several things happened at once.

Serenity's limp body fell onto the bed beside the machine.

Her translucent image flickered and appeared in the mists beside the time door, next to Pluto who nodded at her silently.

And on the crowded streets of 1993 Tokyo, fourteen year old Tsukino Usagi fell unconscious to the sidewalk, to the surprise of Mizuno Ami and Kino Makoto and the concerned and curious knot of people forming around them as the schoolgirl remained unresponsive to her friends' increasingly panicked cries.

* * *

><p>Black Moon occupied Crystal Tokyo was a graveyard. Dark, cold, and desolate. Serenity couldn't bare to glance at familiar landmarks and beloved places that had become burnt and broken ruins.<p>

She ran with silent footsteps through streets that seared at her heart, golden hair streaming behind her in the mist, dress pooling around her legs in transparent waves.

"Pluto," Serenity asked, reaching for her companion's arm and shuddering as her hand passed right through the taller woman's gloved elbow. "Pluto -"

The senshi turned, dark hair in a waterfall around her, eyes soft as she looked on the ghost of her sovereign. "My queen?"

Serenity swallowed. Or would have, if she had a real throat. "When Endymion was split, he told me," she shut her eyes. Or would have, if she had real eyes. "He told me, when he was a hologram everything was muted, dulled. And only when he awoke, he remembered being unconscious. And remembered what was there when they pulled his mind into the hologram. The entire time, a part of him that-" She stopped and looked again at Pluto, unsure whether to continue. Unsure if she even could. "Something he couldn't explain."

"That's what we are going to find out. And try to stop."

_A part of him that must not want me_, Serenity wondered. _A part of him that wanted Crystal Tokyo destroyed. Small Lady never born. _ Her heart would be pounding if she had a real heart. Did she want to face the part of Endymion that ... that didn't love her?

"Is anything left behind of me?" she asked, to keep Pluto talking, to keep her mind from drifting down the dark pathways it was going. "Back in Crystal Tokyo, I mean."

Pluto walked purposely in front of her, not turning as she answered.

"No," she said. "If anything of you is 'left behind', it is somewhere else." Her tone made it clear she would not answer where, even if Serenity did ask.

* * *

><p>It didn't take long to find the king's body, laying warm and still on a marble pallet. Serenity cringed inwardly. She had been entombed with curtains and lace and engraving, and her husband lay in a make-shift hospital room, injured and alone. Medical appliances nearby beeped constantly, crystal displays showed vital signs and brain wave activity.<p>

"Are you ready?" Pluto asked, and her garnet rod swung low and steady. She had done it before, with the senshi of the past, into the mind of the sick and suffering Small Lady. She did it again, this time with Neo-Queen Serenity, into what was left of the mind of King Endymion.

"How -" Serenity began to ask, but because she was a hologram, only a beam of information, only a program, only light, only thought, the machine was manipulated and she was thrown into blackness before she could finish her sentence.

* * *

><p>It was absolute.<p>

Blackness.

Serenity felt blind, she couldn't even see her hand before her face.

This was familiar in it's own way, being tossed into new environments and expected to fight alone.

But she usually had her crystal.

Almost as if she willed it into being, a small glow erupted from her hands and suddenly the ginzuishou was there. Or a hologram ginzuishou, created from her mind. But it was enough to surround her a small halo of light, to comfort her for a second.

She had just lifted pale blue eyes to glance around when a sharp and oh-so-familiar voice pierced the silence.

"Why are you here?"

She cried out in surprise and the ginzuishou went out, darkness falling around her like a wall.

* * *

><p>tbc<p>

really this time!

i hope you liked it but if not that's okay you can say you hated it in the review

sorry

but!

i promise i'll finish it even if it's bad so

there's that


	5. Chapter 4

this chapter is a thing that happened. sigh.

* * *

><p>"Usagi! Usagi!" Kino Makoto continued to shake her unconscious friend, panic rising in her chest. The droid that had attacked Sailor Moon with a sleeping spell from which her senshi couldn't wake her was very recent in Makoto's mind. This seemed all too similar, and yet terrifyingly different as well.<p>

Mizuno Ami cast a worried glance at the gathering crowd and sent her friend and fellow senshi a meaningful look. "Oh, I think she's just exhausted. Let's get her home," she raised her voice uncharacteristically above it's usual quiet murmur, for benefit of the crowd. "Always over-exerting herself, that Usagi, with schoolwork and sports, and with her condition! When she wakes up, her mother is sure to scold her."

Makoto gave Ami a strange look, but when the people on the sidewalk seemed to lose interest, walking off while muttering to each other, the taller girl raised her eyebrows appreciatively.

"Never knew you were such a good liar," Makoto whispered, her face still etched with worry. "What should we do? Hospital?" She lifted Usagi into her arms with a grunt and they walked out of the view of the public's prying eyes.

"No," Ami said, "I don't think we can risk this. The shrine might be better - and we can gather everyone together. Call her parents- tell her she's sleeping over at-"

"Ami? I can't carry Usagi all the way to the Rei's," Makoto said.

"Well, we can't just climb on the bus with an unconscious schoolgirl," Ami said. She forced herself to think logically, to problem-solve a way out of the situation that found them in an alleyway in downtown Juuban with Usagi limp in Makoto's arms. It was easier to do that than focus on the girl herself and what could possibly be wrong anyway.

"We need a car," Ami said, finally.

"Ami, don't you dare."

"I'm going to make a phone call."

"Ami, I swear to -"

"Stay here in case she wakes up."

Ami left Makoto seething impotently, with Usagi growing heavier in her arms. Makoto sent an apologetic look at her friend's sleeping face. Except, she didn't seem to be sleeping. Her body wasn't cold, she wasn't fading - it wasn't like before during the droid attack. But her eyelids weren't flickering, her face wasn't twitching, she wasn't snoring or mumbling or smiling or any of the things Usagi usually did in her sleep.

Makoto swallowed hard, as she realized why her friend's face looked so strange - locked in a peaceful, doll-like state of unconsciousness.

It was like Usagi wasn't even there.

* * *

><p>"Why are you here?"<p>

Serenity fumbled in the dark, curling cold, nervous fingers around the ginzuishou. But it wouldn't shine now. She waited for a few moments, hoping her eyes would adjust to the dark. She oriented herself to the voice - Endymion's voice - to answer his question.

It was the same as the very first question he had ever asked her.

What had her answer been? Serenity tried to remember being that young princess who had just broken the most important rule in her upbringing, tried to remember feeling overwhemled and a little frightened and so, so brand new to everything around her.

"I- I wanted to see you," she answered. It was her answer then, it was the same now. Little by little, she was starting to make out shapes, her hands and arms, the figure in front of her, the floor - no walls. Everything in charcoal.

"_Can_ you see?" he asked, and she could_ feel_ his smirk, rather than see it.

"A little," she said.

Slowly, slowly, things around her brightened until she was blinking in a cool light - surrounded by white.

They were in Crystal Tokyo. But it was ruined.

Just like outside with Sailor Pluto. War-torn and broken and devastated. Serenity looked around, lips parted and eyebrows lifted in sorrow. "This is-"

"This is the mental projection of my city as I last saw it," Endymion said. "I assume it doesn't look much better out there."

She turned toward Endymion, or at least the part of him that wasn't currently in the real Crystal Tokyo, wandering the actual ruins. This one was locked in a pseudo-city, as lonely and desolate as the actual one. He was not in the formal state attire the hologram was, no mask, no cape - just a regular dark blue uniform - blood stained and torn. He was looking at her warily, his blue eyes guarded.

"Who are you?" he asked.

Serenity was thrown. She had not been expecting to introduce herself. And suddenly even that simple question seemed so loaded, so difficult: so many official titles, and long-outgrown civilian names. She was Serenity, Sailor Moon, Usagi - everyone and all of them. Or was she only Neo-Queen Serenity of Crystal Tokyo, on an official mission from Sailor Pluto, desperate to save her kingdom from the ravages of distorted and disturbed time?

"I'm Serenity," she said, finally.

Endymion shook his head slightly, still looking at her with those strange, guarded eyes. "No," he said. "You can't be."

She glanced down at the ginzuishou floating still above her right hand thrumming just slightly and waiting to answer its mistress's call. It might not be real, the real ginzuishou might be back with her sleeping body in revived Crystal Tokyo - and it was currently missing in this war-torn world. But surely it had to give some proof of her identity.

Serenity closed her hand around the crystal and brought it back against her chest, where it settled gently, pulsed and vanished. She looked up and met Endymion's eyes again.

"I am the bearer of the ginzuishou, Princess of the Moon Kingdom, Queen of Crystal Tokyo, Neo-Queen Serenity. For a while, I went by Tsukino Usagi and fought along side my senshi as Sailor Moon. I've come on an errand, at behest of Sailor Pluto, who brought me here." She shrugged a little, offered him a half-smile to his expressionless face. "If you want to get formal."

"Serenity's dead," he snapped. "Or as good as," he amended when she gasped in response. "If Sailor Pluto needs something she can talk to the hologram or let the world continue to destory itself outside. There's nothing left for me to do. It can't possibly get any worse."

He turned away from her and began to leave. The light and city followed him in a flickering, surreal way.

Serenity had the disorienting feeling of seeing her own gravestone when he had annouced her demise so straightforwardly, and her first response was a flush of anger that made her ball her fists.

"I am not dead!" she shouted. Then bit her tongue just to feel the ting of pain to remind her she was, indeed, alive. In a sense. Since entering Endymion's mind Serenity felt more solid, more real. She wondered if she was no longer a hologram in here, or if everything in this place was incorporeal as she was.

He didn't respond.

The city was fading around her and she was being left in emptiness again.

"_I am Serenity!_," she called into the nothing. "And I did not die in the attack! Endymion!"

Silence. Crystal Tokyo was gone. She was alone again, and possibly running out of time.

Pressing her fists into her eyes, she took a few short, quick breaths and tried to focus. Before she even opened her eyes again, she was aware of him watching her, just a few feet away.

"Alright," he said. "Tell me."

He reached out to touch her arm and she cringed, waiting for his hand to pass right through her. To her shock, her arm appeared solid beneath his touch - in this place she was no more a projection than he was.

"I'm not dead," she said. "See?" She added weakly, putting her hand on his arm, as if her new-found solidity affirmed her point.

"I'm sure I've seen you die," he answered coldly. The light was dimming again. Something hard and cold settled in the pit of Serenity's stomach. She tightened her grip on his arm. "Too many times."

"You've died, too," she said. "We always come back. I always come back to you."

"Once I almost killed you. Aren't you worried I'll do it again?" Now it was almost completely dark. "You came into my mind, invading my thoughts, and you never once gave a thought to what might happen to you? That it might be dangerous? You have no power here, Queen of Crystal Tokyo. Sailor Moon." Serenity didn't let go of his arm.

"You won't hurt me," she said.

"Serenity," he sounded frustrated, his hands moved to her shoulders, "I've done nothing _but_ hurt you over and over again, since we met."

"Maybe you don't want me here, but-" she started and his hands tightened until she almost cried out.

"_Want you here_?" he said. "I'd destroy the world if you asked me to and you are saying I don't _want_ you here?"

She couldn't see, but she could feel him put his head on her shoulder, the tickle of his hair brushing her neck and the agitated breathing. His whole body was tense. Serenity felt the cold of the wall behind her - but it wasn't wall anymore, it was stone - damp and rough - like a cave.

"Endymion," she whispered through dry lips, "it's okay."

"It's not," he answered her. And then she was alone in the dark again.

"Why, though?" Serenity called out, trying not to panic at the claustrophobic blackness she was surrounded in. She pressed her palms against the cave wall. "Why try to destroy everything? Why do that to us?"

"Is it because there's nothing to check you anymore?" She pushed herself off the wall and turned to look around but all she could see was nothingness all around her. "Because the logical part of you is off patrolling the city, and you can finally attempt to gain the freedom you always wanted?" Her voice cracked in anger and hurt and she finally realized how upset she was.

"That's a stupid reason!" She shouted into the dark. "If you don't love me anymore there are easier ways to leave!"

Serenity went to slam her fist into the stone in frustration, but the cave wall wasn't there anymore. Her fist sailed right through open air and it threw her off balance until she was falling through the air.

She had just opened her mouth to scream when Endymion caught her, without even flinching. Her arms had come up to shield her fall, and ended up pressed against his chest, his arms locked around her, his mouth at her ear.

"There are no easy ways to leave," he said, his voice intense and hoarse in her ear. "I wouldn't leave you if you killed me, Serenity. If you held a knife to my heart I would let you cut it out. You are locked away in a crystal coffin, and I would climb in there and die with you if I could. You can't stand there and accuse me of _not loving you _when you are the very alpha and omega to my existence."

Serenity had a million words on tongue, she wanted to scream and cry and tell him what she felt like she'd be saying over and over again since she first found him and every time after - that it was the same for her, that there was no _her_ without him. Not in the same way. That all of her power and all of her fighting and the very world she saved and built and continued to protect was part of them and their love and whatever partenership they had.

But then Sailor Pluto's words were whispered in memory - Serenity had a specific reason to be here and she couldn't lose focus. "Then stop trying to destroy everything," Serenity finally said, blinking in the complete darkness.

"But don't you see, my love?" he answered. "Everything's already been destroyed."

* * *

><p>Makoto sighed and tenderly stroked Usagi's hair. She was crammed in the backseat of Mamoru's sportscar with Usagi curled on her lap, trying to tune out Ami and Mamoru in the front seat - having a loud discussion involving pulse rates and breathing and body temperture and the benefits of taking Usagi straight to Juuban hospital versus Rei's shrine.<p>

"When we get there I'll do a full body scan," Ami said, "but from what I can tell she seems healthy and I can't risk the hospital getting involved since it seems enemy related."

"But it wasn't during an attack, no droids were in sight, you said yourself it's not like - like the last time," Mamoru faltered a little, then continued on, "this could be something serious that a doctor needs to handle. Or, something simple. Why do people pass out? Exhaustion, low blood sugar-"

"Yes," Makoto interrupted, sarcastically. "low blood sugar, that _must_ be it. Because she only ate three crepes on the way home from school instead of her usual five."

Mamoru hit the steering wheel with his fist in frusteration and glared at Makoto in the rearview mirror and she met his gaze with equal steel.

When he'd shown up with Ami, Mamoru hadn't been able to hide the worry in his eyes, the panic in his movements as he reached for Usagi. Makoto had flinched away from him and insisted on carrying Usagi herself - wouldn't even allow him to take a pulse, assuring him Ami had all the vital signs covered. She made it clear that calling him wasn't her idea, and just took to glaring at him from the backseat the entire time.

As the car pulled up at the shrine, Rei, Minako and Yuuichiro were waiting at the bottom of the steps with a make-shift stretcher. Makoto gratefully allowed Yuuichiro and Rei's help in lowering Usagi onto the fabric bed. The two began walking Usagi up the stairs to the shrine. Mamoru wondered briefly what Rei had told Yuuichiro, or if she ever needed to tell him anything.

"Thanks for the ride," Makoto said, half-sincerely, half-snidely, as she turned to follow them up the stairs.

"We'll call you with any news," Ami told Mamoru quietly.

"Maybe, if we remember," Makoto called over her shoulder, this time it was all venom.

"We will," Ami said, firmly. Then she turned and ran up the stairs to join her friends.

Mamoru watched them go, clenching his fists tightly.

* * *

><p>maybe stuff actually happens next chapter<p>

maybe not

idk

i'm not happy with this at all but i'm sick of rewriting and rewriting

sorry for my life


End file.
